Flower of Carnage
by Inner Self
Summary: This is the story of a daughter who had a loving family; a girl who had a happy childhood; a medic whose skill progressed as quickly as the Legendary Slug Princess; a woman who lost the faith of her village. This is the story of the traitor who massacred the Haruno Clan. Itachi x Sakura role reversal. Up for adoption by writer of my choosing. Same with my other story ideas.


Role Reversal: The Flower of Carnage

By Inner Self

Summary: This story was inspired by a role reversal story for Hermione Granger and Severus Snape. See Ms. Figg's works, I believe. It was quite some time ago. This is the story of a daughter who had a loving family; a girl who had a happy childhood; a medic whose skill progressed as quickly as the Legendary Slug Princess; a woman who lost the faith of her village. This is the story of the traitor who massacred the Haruno Clan. Itachi x Sakura role reversal.

Chapter One: "The Flower of Carnage" (by Meiko Kaji…just kidding)

[June 21st]

At the end of every week, most shinobi stationed in the village would take a Sabbath. Haruno Sakura was not the average shinobi; far from it. Haruno Sakura did not have a life outside of training, missions, and familial duties. She was the most talented shinobi outside of the Uchiha and Hyuuga clans. It was hard to imagine what Haruno Sakura would be capable of if she were born to one of the famous bloodlines. Still, the Harunos were praised for their finely honed chakra control. Among the Haruno Clan, the pink kunoichi was known as the great revival of spring.

On the morning of her Sabbath day, Haruno Sakura trained with Kurenai Yuhi, Kohoha's best illusionist. For the right price, anyone would give up Sabbath. Because of Sakura, the illusionist was able to keep a schedule closer to home, teaching at the entrance academy, and start a family with her long-time boyfriend. "I cannot say who is getting the better end of the deal. You have an inherent gift for genjutsu. My help was hardly worth it. You should be a master in your own right with a year of constant effort."

"I am sure The Great Hiroko, may he rest in peace, would show unabashed favoritism toward me," Sakura replied. "But I thank you for expediting the process. I cannot afford to give undivided attention to training for so long. It is best that I learn from the master when I can."

Kurenai laughed as she released her genjutsu and wiped the sweat from her brow. "Yes, despite your natural talent for genjutsu, only recently did you decide to unlock your potential."

"I wish I could have trained with you sooner. I am glad I had the chance," Sakura bowed deeply, polite if not overly polite.

"Uh, that's not necessary. I got something out of it, and I can raise my children without worrying everytime I am called into work."

Kurenai Yuhi had only seen one student excel faster than the woman before her, and that student was Uchiha Itachi. Of course, he had the Sharingan, while Sakura had coin to buy experts where her tight schedule permitted. Uchiha Itachi was young by Uchiha standards and still making a name for himself. Despite being Sakura's age, his clan was lax about training. The Haruno Clan, however, started early and hit the tree running. All Harunos learned to tree climb by the age of 7. Sakura figured it out not long after turning three. She started working for the hospital at five and signed up for a spot on a genin team at age 8. From that point on, she was saddled with Uchiha Itachi and Uchiha Shisui and the medic position on Team 4. From that experience, she discovered who the genius of the Uchiha clan was, a slacker who kept a low profile. She vowed to surpass Itachi and keep ahead of the learning curve.

Idle time the Uchiha boy could afford, and he did so often with his little brother.

The best part about the Itachi-Sakura rivalry was that Itachi seemed not to notice the rivalry. He would never be serious around her. He patiently sought advancement. She would challenge him to a fight and he would aimlessly walk away, into the flower fields, and collect his favorite cherry blossoms. One day he offered a reef of sakura flowers to its namesake, only for the reef to be swatted into the dirt road. It seemed the Harunos, so delicately named, were anything but. At the age of ten, Sakura, Itachi, and Shisui took the chûnin exams to end her incessant nagging.

On only one occurrence, during a retrieval mission, did Sakura see the chûnin's eyes bask in the advantageous Sharingan glow. Uchiha Sasuke had nearly been abducted by Cloud ninja. Itachi forced them to release the boy. Once the boy was safely secured in his arms, Itachi made the enemy walk onto seemingly solid ground that hovered above the canyon marking the border. The shallow river washed their bodies ashore on the side of Lightning Country. Upon their return, she signed up for the jônin exams. After a couple back-to-back solo missions, the Third Hokage and the council of elders selected her for the ANBU ranks.

"If only Father had not drilled medicine into my head since the day I could walk," Sakura said, laying on the self-pity in waves. Kurenai laughed at her apprentice's displeasure. "Your sister seems to enjoy it. She's quite the natural."

Sakura balked with mirth and bemusement, "Imoutou does whatever her aneki does. It is more imitation than talent. I think her talent lies in genjutsu as well, not that I would tell the family what it is that I do on Sabbath."

Dripping sarcasm, Kurenai added, "You would think that they would approve."

"When off duty, they expect me to train in the medicine and poisons," she said agitatedly, "contributing to 'familial duties.'" The last part said with air quotes. Behind a delicately manicured hand, Kurenai hid obvious but elegant laughter.

Hands on hips, Kurenai mockingly pitied the girl. "Too bad you're not a Yuhi. We are not much for beauracracy."

"Yeah, just like the Uchiha main branch. Geez, how did I miss that."

The two enjoyed a mirth-filled moment before walking out of their special training area and turning to their separate ways. Kurenai walked as if in a trance. She always felt so relaxed after seeing Sakura, who for all she hoped and wished, saw her as an aneki. Kurenai rubbed her belly thoughtfully. Some months from now, her first little one would be born, and Sakura had agreed to play the part of the godmother.

When Sakura got home, she quickly made sandwiches with the lunchmeat in the fridge. She ate one and gave the other to her imoutou. Halfway through the meal, the blond beauty smiled up at her with crumbs sticking all over her chin and cheeks. It was quite the amusing site. Sakura's sister lost all etiquette ground into her once they were alone in the house.

"Ino-pig, come here," she called and wiped the girls face roughly with a linen napkin. The younger girl could not get in a word of protest during the process.

In a fit, Ino finally batted her sister's hand away. Pouting, she said, "Aneki always does that, rubbing my face like she's scouring the floor."

Sakura chuckled and said, "It needed scouring."

Sakura picked up the empty plates and washed them in the sink; scrub, rinse, and pat dry. Ino called from behind, "Are you going to train me in genjutsu today?"

"Ino-chan, how many times have I warned you?"

"What?"

"Imoutou, Father doesn't like when my attention is divided. He thinks this stupid family is better off producing its own Slug Princess. The Slug Princess never dabbled in what I dabble in, so this will be the last time we discuss it."

Her sister pouted and tried again. "So… will you teach me."

Showing only the slightest signs of frustration, Sakura replied, "Maybe some other time, imoutou."

The girl grabbed her training bag and headed for the door. "You always say that," Ino called over her shoulder.

Sakura grabbed her own gear pack and reattached it to her lower back. Her sister waited for her, hoping that at least aneki would walk her back to the academy. The two stepped outside and Sakura locked the house and set up chakra alarms.

"The school is not too out of your way…," Ino started to say, but was abruptly cut off. With a slight nudge, Sakura pushed her sister, causing her to stumble without falling. "HEY!" she shrieked in protest.

Sakura ran off in a direction opposite of the academy. Behind her, she called, "A kunoichi is always aware of her surroundings!" With that she left her sister in the dust.

Ino checked her appearance to make sure she was presentable. The last time aneki pushed her, she found a spider in her kunai pouch. Pouting, the child headed for the academy. Today would be another day of fighting off boys and playing hard to get with the little terror, Uchiha Sasuke.

Sakura went about her day shift at the hospital and close to the end, Uchiha Shisui came in with an eye injury.

"Obviously, you deserved it," she told the fifteen-year-old male.

"Oh?" He replied, holding an ice-pack over his left eye.

"Pervert," Sakura said, doing her best to look accusatory. Meanwhile, Inner Sakura was laughing her ass off. "Hold still, damnit."

"I'm an Uchiha. I can't help it," he said defensively.

"It would heal on its own, but you don't want anyone to see it…"

"…So I came here." The boy grinned at her. Clearly there was another reason.

"Has my cousin talked to you today?" he asked cheerfully. Sakura wondered just why this boy was in the ANBU, just as quickly as she thanked kami that people like him were. It made her job much easier. Her standing as a Haruno also helped dramatically. Shisui was grinning about something like a Cheshire cat.

"The only medics you big clans trust are the Harunos."

"Your family crest says it all." He leaned back on the table, waiting for her to work her magic and thinking his secret thoughts.

Sakura turned to him and placed her hands on his blackening eye and reddened cheek. Cool, soothing chakra flowed out of her fingertips, gently easing under his skin. First, she adjusted her chakra frequency to act as a natural anesthetic. Then she steadily set about reducing oxygen flow to his brain. Before he knew it, he was unconscious.

"Above all else, do no harm," she replied and molded blue chakra into a scalpel.

Sakura formed a set of one hand seals and drew white optical chakra into her right eye. She adjusted the wavelengths to interact as they would for her left eye. Her depth perception was a bit off, so she tweaked the optical jutsu to bend light at a slightly different angle. Once the sight felt normal, she extracted the cornea of her first eye and melded to the interior portion a thin film of the cornea of the unconscious Uchiha. By her calculations, Sakura would unlock some of the Sharingan's potential and no one would be the wiser. She returned the rest of the tissue to the proper owner and set about healing her victim and then herself.

Once the eye was healed, Sakura cancelled her mirror-vision jutsu and tested out the result. The eye functioned on a civilian scale and she wondered if it would perform the legendary doujutsu. It would take time, she realized fast. Also, she would not be leaving the village too soon. Noting that there were plenty of Uchiha who kept confidence in her, she started up her mirror-vision jutsu on the newly healed eye and did the procedure for her other eye.

Once finished, Sakura still looked like Sakura. Shisui still had his eyes, for the most part. _Haha,_ _Shannaro!_ Her skill was subtlety at its best. "One thing left to do." Sakura took a pill bottle from her gear pack, an immunosuppressant, and popped it into her mouth. She then turned on the tap, cupped a good amount, and washed down the pill. She then stuffed the bottle back into her pack. "Hopefully, I won't always need these."

Sakura readjusted the minute hand so that the clock, which was once too fast, was now a tad slow. Everything evened out. What took ten minutes seemed like five. With a delicate jolt of green chakra, Sakura brought Shisui back to consciousness. "Anybody home?"

Shisui jolted upward with a start. "You knocked me out!" he yelled accusatorily.

"Only but a minute," she said, pouting.

"Did you do anything to me when I was out?" he asked irritated.

"Only what Sasuke's little friend asked me to do," she said with her fake smile.

"Haha very funny," he said, knowing that fake smile whenever he saw it.

Sakura brushed passed him for the door. "I didn't do anything this time," she said over her shoulder, "but I should have. It's almost my bedtime—walk me home."

"Oh, I forgot. Little girls like you still follow a bedtime."

Sakura made to trip her older teammate, but he skillfully hopped over her outstretched foot. "Baka."

He did not end up leading her home, as expected. In fact, he disappeared on her in the deserted lobby. Better he do so that Sakura could relax. Sakura kept to her weekly schedule for some time after that.

[September 18th, Day of the Massacre, morning]

The morning was wet and the sky did not appear to be letting up.

Sakura was packing her lunch with the sliding door to the outer walkway left open. It seemed appropriate to go through the motions, while listening to the incoming storm. Once finished Sakura closed the sliding door, grabbed the lunches, and made for the entrance hall when her father approached her.

"I heard you have been practicing genjutsu," he said faking calm.

"I hear you like to tell me what to do," said his eldest daughter with that fake smile in place. She turned her back on him as if to end the conversation and handed a packed lunch to her sister. Her sister thanked her almost inaudibly, sensing another type of storm. Ino quickly put on her raincoat and hat and rushed out the door. Yelling could be heard to the end of the property, where Ino waited for her sister.

Sakura emerged from the house unscathed of course. "Are those tears or rain droplets?"

Ino did her best to wipe her face clean. "Father tells me not to be like you."

"Father thinks our clan can only grow stronger if we specialize in medicine. This village depends on us and trusts us in a way that it cannot trust other shinobi clans. We occupy all the high-paying hospital and clinic positions, aside from the vet clinics run by the Inuzuka Clan."

"But," Ino started, brushing away the last of her tears. Sakura pitied the girl for a moment and picked her up.

"Genjutsu is used to kill. Father doesn't like the way I've chosen to protect konoha, on the field. It damages the trust of patients being cared for by our clan, he says. If you saw me kill someone, like I do on those missions, you would hate me as father does."

"I wouldn't hate you, aneki! You are just protecting the village in your own way!" Ino exclaimed. The girl was so frustrated with the lines being drawn in the household. Fretful tears began anew. Ever since Sakura became ANBU, nothing aneki did would please their father. Their father began to make more demands of the youngest daughter while the older one yelled back and did as she pleased.

Sakura smiled down at the girl. "Thank-you, Ino-pig."

Ino's mood quickly changed. The girl jumped out of her sister's hold. "I can walk myself, Forehead!" She blew a raspberry and ran off the couple paces it took to get to the academy.

"I'm sure that's what all the other kids thought until a while ago!" Her reply was muted in the rainfall, but Ino had all her aneki's taunts memorized by now.

Sakura resumed her trek to Kurenai's training spot. On Kurenai's off-days, she would set up various tests, some to keep her basic skills honed to perfection, some to advance in higher level training. Along the way, she spotted a familiar chakra signature. Her former teammate Uchiha Itachi was leaning against a wall cast in early morning shadows, his pose seemingly pensive.

"Ohayo, Itachi-kun," Sakura greeted him.

Itachi broke out of his thoughts. "Yes," he said blankly, "Ohayo, Sakura-chan." She had long ago told he and Shisui to drop the –chan honorific, but formalities for an Uchiha die hard.

"The least you could do is address me as –kun," she said. "What brings you here?"

"Shisui and I will be gone a couple days," he said. "The third hokage has entrusted us with an A-ranked cooperative mission."

"Congratulations. You have yet to graduate to solo missions," she replied smugly.

"That's not fair of you. He only gives you those missions to keep you docile. You are a power hungry one," he said jokingly with a smile that reached his eyes.

Sakura matched her facial features to his. "Indeed I am." She looked around. "Where is your cousin?"

"He is packing. He takes a while. In the meantime, I was hoping we could… spar."

Sakura performed a dramatic double-take, "You want to spar me? A year ago, I would feel elated."

"And not now?" he inquired with an unspoken _why?_

"I have to take a double shift at the hospital today. Mother's coworker is not feeling well and would rather not infect her patients. Mother instructed that I work night shift with her," Sakura said. Her mother slept through her days and worked all night. It made Sakura the leading female of the Haruno household and gave her father less and less control as she got older. "I will need to conserve what chakra I have after my daily routine."

"Ah… I see," Itachi said skeptically.

"That and you will not fight me seriously. There is a high probability that you will waste my time, whether you mean to or not," Sakura added.

She tried to brush past him, but he caught her wrist. "Now I don't see."

"You really _don't see? _I figured out for myself that you would never give me the fight I deserve, or anyone for that matter. Sensei thinks you are giving your one hundred percent, but you always hold back on familiar faces," she said irritatedly before calming herself.

Itachi mulled over her words. It was obvious when someone pointed it out to him.

Sakura cupped his cheek with her hand. "The time I have honestly wished I could fight you were the times I saw you training alone."

He was pulled out of his thoughts with a start, immediately followed by a blush.

"Good luck on your mission."

Itachi thanked her with a subtle nod, calming his flushed cheeks as he did, and returned to his initial destination without another word spoken.

Sakura smirked outwardly. "Boys at this age are a little on the obvious side. That's okay. I will get my decent fight from you yet, shannaro!" Her lips dropping into a frown, the reclusive kunoichi setup her equiptment and trained six hours. At midday, she ate her meal, packed her things, and headed for the general hospital. Sakura stepped inside the main lobby, signed in, and went to the changing room. She changed out of her wet things and into her scrubs and lab coat. The day shift continued as it normally would and should. When navigating the hallways, she saw at the window panes lining the outer wall an occasional flash of lightning, quickly followed by a clash of thunder.

Sakura healed her patients no more or less than necessary. A great shinobi strives for efficiency, her father always said. Once the evening set in, Sakura discarded her latex gloves and signed out for her dinner run. She popped a food pill into her mouth and back tracked into the basement. A random passerby, a maintenance worker, saw her descend the stairs. She clocked him effortlessly in the back of the head once she passed his field of vision. "Lights out," she said, smirking and picked him up. She stowed him behind some pipework. In no time, she found the power distribution box. She opened it and waited until the next roll of thunder passed, then shut off the lever for the main power distribution. The whole hospital went dark as if it had suffered a power outage. She quickly flipped all buttons onto "off" status except for the backup generators, and then flipped the main power distribution lever. The lights came back on, but the hospital appeared to be running on the backup generators.

In no time a team of workers was dispatched to the basement. Sakura caught the familiar pink and red headed clansmen unaware and severed them at the neck with her trusty chakra scalpel. The massacre had begun. She caught the remaining non-clansman in a chokehold and whispered, "I hope we aren't going to have a problem. My quarrel is not with you." The employee promptly wet himself before falling unconscious in a pool of blood. "Sorry about the mess. How else was I to make a political statement?"

Sakura then promptly dispatched her kin floor by floor. She made quick work of the life support division, which was busy attempting to re-stabilize the ICU patients. By the time she got to the next level, the hospital had caught on to her one woman invasion. She ran into a team of Haruno doctors and nurses and injured shinobi.

When they saw her bloodstained figure, their faces paled. _Why?_ They asked, barely able to voice the thought. "My quarrel is with my kinsmen." Without batting an eyelash, Sakura activated the stolen sharingan. She dispatched them, incapacitating the occasional non-clansmen and leaving a gruesome trail of Haruno blood and eviscerated flesh through the hallways.

[last floor, last hospital victim]

Sakura knelt down and wiped her hands on her mother's labcoat. She smoothed her hair back, streaking it red with what flecks of blood that remained. The hallway was a trail of red-heads whose blood ran a bit darker and matted their scalps. A thunderous sound of footsteps could be heard coming up the stairs. Everyone who got in her way was incapacitated. They did not expect a Sharingan-wielding Haruno.

Every nightshift worker was accounted for. Sakura dashed down the stairwell for the locker room, discarded her scrubs and lab coat, and changed into her ANBU gear. The downpour of rain could not wash away her sins as she ran toward the Haruno compound.

The whole city was awake by the time she jumped the wall, and yet, Sakura had managed a quick heart to heart with her little sister.

"Come find me, Ino-piggy. Come find me when you are feeling brave. We will see which one of us survives the slaughterhouse."

Haruno Sakura betrayed her village for such a seemingly simple reason as revenge against her clan. Into the darkness she trekked; into the cold embrace of Akatsuki.


End file.
